Border Lines

North Aurora Closes In On Agreements With All 3 Neighbors

North Aurora's days of battling its neighbors over developments at the village's fringes may soon be over.

By early next year, the Village Board expects to have new or modified boundary agreements in place with all three adjacent municipalities, Village President Mark Ruby said.

"I don't think we are even yet aware of all the advantages this will give us as we develop to the west," Ruby said. "We don't have to play games with developers playing the municipalities against each other."

The agreements also would help the village develop a more detailed comprehensive plan, he added.

Ruby made the comments a day after the Village Board came to a consensus on agreements with Aurora and Batavia during a discussion session. Both of those cities also appear ready to sign off on the agreements, perhaps before the end of the year.

Discussions with Sugar Grove also are going well, and an agreement with that village should be wrapped up by early next year, Ruby and acting Sugar Grove Village President P. Sean Michels said.

In the last 18 months, North Aurora has engaged in annexation disputes with Aurora and a lawsuit with Batavia, both over land along shared municipal boundaries.

"It's been a real stone around our neck," said Trustee David Lunardini, who said the three pending agreements will give the village a stronger negotiating stance with potential developers.

Both Michels and Ruby said their discussions have not been contentious, with both municipalities agreeing to use Norris Road as the boundary between North Aurora and Sugar Grove.

The agreement with Batavia would modify a 1991 boundary agreement between the two municipalities. Batavia in mid-1998 filed suit when North Aurora considered annexation of land north of the dividing line in the 1991 agreement.

The suit was settled by allowing North Aurora to annex all of the 124-acre Jones Farm, about 56 acres of which was north of the line, for a residential development.

In exchange, North Aurora agreed not to extend water service to any other developments north of the boundary.

But the two towns entered discussions again this year when Wiseman-Hughes Enterprises Inc. sought to develop 89 acres, part of which was north of the boundary, as a residential development in North Aurora.

The agreement that North Aurora trustees appear ready to approve was a proposal from Batavia, said North Aurora attorney Gilbert X. Drendel.

It would clarify the boundary between the two municipalities between Randall Road and Deerpath Road and draw a new boundary not in the 1991 agreement from Deerpath to Norris. To avoid disagreements, the new boundary avoids dividing land parcels, he said.

The entire Wiseman-Hughes development would fall within North Aurora's boundaries.

The agreement also would place a parcel at the northwest corner of Orchard and Randall Roads within Batavia's boundaries, as Batavia sought.

The agreement with Aurora was reached late last month. Both municipalities are expected to approve it shortly.

Once approved, it would end a dispute that began in August 1990, eight months before the expiration of the last boundary agreement between Aurora and North Aurora.

The dispute became more contentious earlier this year, when Aurora annexed 75 acres of land mostly northwest of the Orchard Road interchange on Interstate Highway 88. North Aurora had long included that commercial land within its planning boundaries.

Under the agreement, Aurora would be allowed to annex some more land north of the East-West tollway, but North Aurora would provide water service to the area.